iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:
Two ghost signs for two businesses that were prominent in Adelaide in the 1980s.
Hair Machine hairdressers and Downtown Amusement Centre.
I remember as a teenager going to Downtown on visits to Adelaide and wasting all my money on the video games.
Hindley Street, Adelaide CBD
Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:
The Spheres (affectionately titled the 'Mall's Balls' by locals) is Rundle Mall's most iconic artwork.
Made from a pair of larger-than-life stainless steel spheres sitting one atop the other, the artwork measures just over 4 metres tall and was brought to life by Vienna-born artist Bert Flugelman.
Flugelman always wanted the artwork to be interacted with.
"That’s why I like it. Kids go for it, they touch it, smear it and become part of it. Everybody can respond to it … After we put it up on the Sunday afternoon I went back on the Monday to watch community responses to it. A very little old lady came walking up to it and looked at it and then she opened up her handbag and took out her handkerchief and blew on the work and wiped it. I thought it was wonderful. I thought that’s alright. It works!" -
Bert Flugelman
The Hindmarsh Building Society donated The Spheres to the City of Adelaide in 1977 to mark their centenary.
Today, The Spheres is a popular meeting place, with most Adelaide locals having met someone at the Mall's Balls when visiting Rundle Mall.
Their shape has become synonymous with Rundle Mall and Adelaide as a whole, appearing on posters, t-shirts — and even the Rundle Mall logo.
You'll often see kids playing with the artwork's reflections and tourists taking a photo of themselves using The Spheres as a backdrop.
Source: www.rundlemall.com/visit/things-to-do/the-malls-balls
Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:
When I was a kid, this was the Coles Department store and I remember going with my mum to the cafeteria in the shop for a pie with gravy and chips for lunch.
Rundle Mall, Adelaide CBD
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Adelaide Arcade was opened in 1885 and was hailed as the most modern shopping precinct in the Southern Hemisphere. With its prominent position between Grenfell Street and Rundle Street (subsequently Rundle Mall) it has continued to be a popular shopping hub to this day.
Construction
The early 1880s were a time of economic boom in South Australia, and the area around Rundle Street was established as the commercial hub of Adelaide. As such, when the adjacent properties of Mr Gay’s Furniture Warehouse and Barker’s and Chamber’s Horse Bazaar burned down in 1884, the owners decided to replace them with a grand new shopping arcade in the most modern style.
The building was designed by Latham Withall and Alfred Wells, contemporaneously with their celebrated design of the Jubilee Exhibition Building. The Arcade’s most prominent features are the domes at each entrance. These domes are decorated with an unusual version of the Australian Coat of Arms. While an official coat of arms was not adopted by Australia until 1908, almost 25 years after the construction of Adelaide Arcade, multiple competitions had been held by that point to design one. The designers of the Arcade chose the example that they thought was most likely to win, but did not in fact manage to guess correctly. While the Arcade’s Arms bears a great resemblance to the eventual national design, the kangaroo and emu are actually on opposite sides.
The Arcade’s foundation stone was laid on 6 May 1885 by Adelaide Mayor William Bundey. Even at this early point, there was an acknowledgement that Adelaide was falling on hard times, as the Mayor expressed his hope that the construction of this new retail locale was a sign of imminent economic revitalisation.
In August 1885, it was announced that the Arcade would be extended to the east in the form of Gay’s Arcade. This new arcade was designed by James Cumming, a prominent Adelaide architect, in an Italianate style. While theoretically a separate building, it has in practice been subsumed into Adelaide Arcade for shopping purposes. Claims that the entire structure would be completed by 1 December were ridiculed by the public. While this lofty target was indeed missed, it was only by less than two weeks. Contemporary writers marvelled that this deadline was only overshot by the unfortunate delay of a shipment of lamps.
Opening
On 12 December 1885, Adelaide Arcade was officially opened in a ceremony led by Governor Sir William Robinson. Rundle Street was closed to traffic and was crowded with the public hoping to get a view of the ceremony. The police presence was strong, as there were fears that unemployed men might start a riot. These fears seemed briefly founded when the crowds loudly booed the arrival of the Governor, but they calmed down once he was inside. The ceremony was relatively informal, and is remembered today mainly for its performance of the Adelaide Arcade Polka, a musical piece composed specifically for this day by Signore Raphael Squarise. This song can be heard today at the on-site museum of the Arcade. Speeches given at the time were optimistic that the successful construction of the Arcade represented an bright economic future for South Australia. The Governor was once again booed upon his exit from the ceremony, leading one newspaper to decry that ‘[i]t is rarely that South Australian assemblages show such bad taste’. Upon the ending of the ceremony, thousands of members of the public thronged through the Arcade, marvelling at the modern wonder of electric lighting.
The Arcade itself comprised 50 shops, each with an upper level workshop accessible by an interior staircase. The building was made of 2 million bricks, as well as 50,000 panes of glass so large that they needed to be specially made and shipped from London. The Arcade was one of Adelaide’s first buildings to utilise electric lighting; the electricity was generated by a large engine held in one of the storerooms. Sixteen lamps along the central corridor lit the entire Arcade. The floor was tiled with Carrera marble. The highlight of the building was the Turkish baths, set in the south-eastern corner. Designed with Orientalist luxury in mind, a ‘normal’ warm bath cost one shilling, while a full Turkish bath cost four. The initial estimate of the cost of the construction of the Arcade was £30,000. In reality, though, the final cost was closer to £60,000.
Operation of the Arcade
Irrespective of the Governor’s or anyone else’s wishes, Adelaide Arcade did not solve Adelaide’s economic woes. The proprietors of the Arcade struggled so significantly to find tenants for their new storefronts that they resorted to offering a full year’s lease rent-free. This ploy seems to have worked, as the Arcade has been in consistent occupation since then.
One of the most notorious events in the Arcade’s history occurred shortly after its opening. The Arcade Beadle (a caretaker) Francis Cluney was popular with the storekeepers and shoppers of the Arcade. He was known for his military dress and manner, having fought for the British Empire in the Crimean War. On 21 June 1887, at about 8.15pm, the lights suddenly went out. Upon investigation of the engine room, Cluney’s mangled body was found stuck in the machinery. Contemporary news reports were very graphic in their descriptions of the event, and this tragedy has stuck in the public consciousness.
Over the decades, Adelaide Arcade slowly lost prominence as the pre-eminent shopping centre of Adelaide. It nevertheless continued regular operations until 1935, when significant renovations were undertaken after a transfer of ownership of the complex. The new owners, Alfred Netter and Alexander Solomon, sought to boost sales through a modern overhaul of the building. Grand plans were made for aquariums, milk bars and ‘penny in the slot machines’, though in practice the main change was a remodelling of storefronts, an upgrade to the lighting, and the installation of telephone boxes. This visual overhaul was apparently very successful, and the somewhat flagging fortune of Adelaide Arcade was revitalised.
There was another, more fundamental, overhaul to the stores in 1968. An interior walkway was added on the second floor, and the number of shops was thereby doubled from 50 to 100. The interior staircases were removed from each store, and the former workshops were remade into separate shops themselves. In 1970, the original marble tiles had become worn down and were replaced.
In 1976, Adelaide Arcade enjoyed the boon of the creation of Rundle Mall, outside the Rundle Mall end of the Arcade a fountain was installed and during the launch celebrations was filled with champagne, enjoyed by Premier Don Dunstan. In 1980, however, tragedy struck. A fire caught hold in Gay’s Arcade and subsequently spread to the main section of Adelaide Arcade. Gay’s Arcade was completely gutted, and Adelaide Arcade suffered over $2 million in damage. Nobody was injured in the blaze, though in the course of evacuating a pet store ‘[a] detective was bitten by a reluctant parrot and a police sergeant was kicked by a kangaroo in the operation. These were the only injuries reported in the blaze’. The entire arcade was closed for trading for a week. Shortly after this unfortunate event, the heritage of Adelaide Arcade was safeguarded through its inscription on the Register of the National Estate.
Apart from its shops, the building often known to the public through its association with the paranormal. It is claimed to be Adelaide’s most haunted building, with up to five resident ghosts, and ghost tours are a popular way to explore its history. The most famous supposed spirit is that of Beadle Cluney, no doubt due to the tragic and grisly manner of his death. The other popular haunting figures are Sydney Kennedy Byron and his mother Bridget. In 1902 Sydney died at age 3 while sleeping in his home, one of the Arcade stores, most likely of gas inhalation. Bridget claimed that he must have turned on the gas himself, but she was accused of murder. After a sensational trial in which it was determined that it could not be known who turned on the gas, she was allowed to go free. Nevertheless, she ended her own life later that year after enduring months of vilification by the Adelaide public. Both Sydney and Bridget are popular with psychics and mediums who visit the Arcade. Regardless of these grisly associations, Adelaide Arcade remains a popular shopping destination as Adelaide’s only remaining 19th century shopping arcade.
mikeleonardvisualarts has added a photo to the pool:
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The restaurant's hours are still tied to the nightclub, which means we only accept orders while DNA Lounge is open. This means, roughly, every Friday, Saturday and Monday from 8pm or 9pm to 2am; and other days of the week as the event calendar dictates.
So give it a try tonight! In... just about 4 hours.
This time the online ordering is (finally!) more directly integrated with our point of sale. With every other ordering system we've used in the past, when someone placed an order, it would show up on a customized, locked-down tablet provided by the outside company, and our cashiers would have to notice it ping and then transcribe the order into our system. But this new one talks to our POS directly, so it goes in like every other cashier order.
This means that it finally makes sense for an in-person customer to use it as a "skip the line" order -- you can place your order from the dance floor or the sidewalk, and then in a few minutes, head on over to the restaurant for pick-up. So that's kind of cool.
Anyway, wow do I have some things to say about online ordering, but writing that up has completely gotten away from me, so I'll save that for a later post.
Weer voor Rotterdam ☁️
Huidige temperatuur (om 01:15): 6.9°C (Bewolkt)Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↑ 194°
Luchtkwaliteit:
- AQI: 47 🟢 (Goed)
- PM2.5: 16.9 μg/m³
- PM10: 21.8 μg/m³
Voorspelling voor de komende dagen:
- zondag 01 februari: Min 4.7°, Max 7.8° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 9%, Windsnelheid: 16.2 km/u (4.5 m/s), richting: ↖ 146°
- maandag 02 februari: Min 0.2°, Max 5.5° (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.4, Kans op neerslag 24%, Windsnelheid: 20.9 km/u (5.8 m/s), richting: ← 93°
- dinsdag 03 februari: Min -0.5°, Max 4.3° (Lichte regen) 🌧️, Neerslag 3.1, Kans op neerslag 33%, Windsnelheid: 24.1 km/u (6.7 m/s), richting: ← 91°
- woensdag 04 februari: Min 2.8°, Max 9.4° (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 1.3, Kans op neerslag 16%, Windsnelheid: 16.8 km/u (4.7 m/s), richting: ↖ 125°
- donderdag 05 februari: Min 0.3°, Max 3.8° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 13%, Windsnelheid: 18.9 km/u (5.2 m/s), richting: ← 82°
- vrijdag 06 februari: Min -0.3°, Max 5.1° (Matige motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 3.0, Kans op neerslag 21%, Windsnelheid: 14.9 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ← 70°
- zaterdag 07 februari: Min -0.3°, Max 2.9° (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 1.5, Kans op neerslag 19%, Windsnelheid: 11.8 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ← 79°
Uurlijkse voorspelling voor de komende 12 uur:
- 02:00: 6.6° (Helder) 🌕, Windsnelheid: 8.3 km/u (2.3 m/s), richting: ↑ 163°
- 03:00: 5.4° (Helder) 🌕, Windsnelheid: 11.5 km/u (3.2 m/s), richting: ↖ 154°
- 04:00: 4.7° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Windsnelheid: 11.5 km/u (3.2 m/s), richting: ↑ 167°
- 05:00: 5.3° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 3%, Windsnelheid: 10.4 km/u (2.9 m/s), richting: ↖ 152°
- 06:00: 5.3° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↖ 145°
- 07:00: 5.5° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 10%, Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↖ 155°
- 08:00: 5.5° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, Windsnelheid: 12.2 km/u (3.4 m/s), richting: ↑ 158°
- 09:00: 5.6° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, Windsnelheid: 12.6 km/u (3.5 m/s), richting: ↖ 143°
- 10:00: 5.9° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, Windsnelheid: 13.0 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ↖ 153°
- 11:00: 6.5° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, Windsnelheid: 13.0 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ↑ 159°
- 12:00: 6.8° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, Windsnelheid: 12.2 km/u (3.4 m/s), richting: ↑ 162°
- 13:00: 6.9° (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 6%, Windsnelheid: 13.0 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ↑ 164°
#Rotterdam #Meteo #MeteoBot #MeteoNetherlands #OpenMeteo #FediMeteo
"All you need to order your own is about $200,000 and some hope and patience."
The Palo Alto-based company Pivotal has been developing the technology since 2009 and is nearly ready to bring it to market... [Company founder Marcus] Leng engineered an ultralight, electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft known as an eVTOL. Other VTOL aircraft, such as helicopters, had existed for decades, but Leng's invention was fixed-wing and didn't rely on gas. The Canadian engineer dubbed his creation BlackFly and spent years working on it in secret. The company moved to the Bay Area in 2014 and by 2018 had developed a second version of BlackFly that laid the groundwork for Helix, the aircraft Pivotal now offers for sale...
Those who are curious — and wealthy — can reserve a Helix today with a $50,000 deposit. The aircraft starts at $190,000 with the option of purchasing a transport trailer for $21,000 and a charger for $1,100. A customer who makes their reservation today could receive their aircraft in nine to 12 months, [Pivotal Chief Executive Ken] Karklin said. It takes less than two weeks to learn how to fly it. In order to complete Pivotal's flight certification training, a customer has to pass the FAA knowledge test and complete ground school. Training, which takes place at the company's Palo Alto headquarters and at the Monterey Bay Academy Airport, teaches customers how to control and maintain the aircraft, as well as how to transport and assemble it...
It is uncertain how fast the company and others like it can ramp up production and how communities will react. Not everyone is on board. Darlene Yaplee, president of the Aviation-Impacted Communities Alliance, said there are concerns about having different types of aircraft in limited airspace. Pivotal has around six early-access customers who already own a version of the BlackFly and are flying it for fun... Helix will have an electric range of about 30 minutes and a cruise speed of 62 mph, the company said. It takes 75 minutes to charge it using a 240 volt charger. The noise produced by the aircraft during takeoff and landing is equivalent to a couple of leaf blowers, Karklin said. When flying it is overhead, someone on the ground might not be able to hear it.
Karklin said the simplicity of the aircraft comes with lower cost, lower weight and higher safety. The aircraft, which has only 18 moving parts, is full of redundancy to prevent system failures.
In short, the article describes it as "a single-person aircraft for recreational use and short-haul travel that also has the potential to support emergency response and military operations."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
From accessible urban strolls to multi-day treks through world heritage-listed sites, walkers are spoiled for choice
There has never been a better time to be a hiker in Australia. Once solely the province of experienced backcountry bushwalkers, the country’s ever-expanding network of hiking trails now offers something for walkers of all abilities.
According to Ausplay, almost 4 million Australians go bushwalking each year, making it the third-most popular form of physical activity in the country, and in 2025 the AllTrails app saw an almost 300% year-on-year increase in distance walked by Australian users. The largest growth has been in long-distance hikes, and it’s no surprise the boom in trail construction is continuing across the country, with multiple big-ticket walks slated to break ground this year.
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